Seeking Silver Bullets Sets Up Companies to Fail

When penicillin was invented in 1928, it was heralded as a miracle drug: a silver bullet. All of a sudden, all sorts of once incurable diseases had one easy cure. It saved lives, it changed modern medicine, but unfortunately, it has totally messed with our expectations about how we solve problems.

We love the idea of one super powerful and world-changing solution, especially in the startup community. We constantly look for the business tool version of penicillin: a miracle app that promises to save your company, or a lifehack that will make you 3 times more productive at work.

The silver bullet is incredibly tempting, especially when you’re dealing with a really complex problem like starting a company.

How many articles do you read that promise to introduce you to the last app you’ll ever need, or the only tool you need for your startup to succeed? These promises are enchanting—we’re likely to click on the articles, or spend a lot of money on the apps. And they almost never work.

That’s because if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That doesn't mean companies shouldn't look to new tools to help them succeed. It just means that, as with penicillin, they need to put additional systems in place to ensure success.

Turns out, one of the most effective of those systems has been around for centuries: the checklist.

Startup Capital: 6 Ways To Fund Your Businesses

When it comes to spearheading a successful business, the amount of money and sweat equity you put in is equally as important as the amount of time for the services you provide in return. People often go to extreme measures to keep their business afloat, some options being more realistic than others.

Anyone can start a company, put up a website, and create a Facebook page, but what determines where that company will stand six, 12, or 18 months down the road, is not only sales, but the funding and capital behind the business. You need to be able to keep the lights on, compensate your employees, keep food on your table, and ensure operations don’t come to an unexpected halt.

Being an entrepreneur, mostly within the advertising space, I’ve seen many businesses start, grow, fail, and either bounce back stronger, or just get scrapped.

There are six main things, from what I’ve seen over the years, which your business may rely on. Here they are:

3 Big Company Practices That Work for Any Startup

A colleague of mine goes to Wal-Mart for almost everything he needs. When I asked him why he doesn’t support mom and pop shops more often, he replied, “Wal-Mart is the most successful mom and pop shop that ever existed.”

In other words, big companies were once startups, too, and they got big by doing a lot of things right. I work for a big company, but I’ve always approached my job like an entrepreneur at a startup, which is how I created a business plan that enabled me to run our digital magazine business as a virtual “start-up” inside our traditional company walls.

Having been at a huge multi-national company while trying to launch a new company, I’ve learned how to apply the following practices inside a big company that will work for any new venture.